“She worries about me,” James said with a wave of his hand, as if that was the most ridiculous thing his aunt could worry about. “She thinks I’ve put my life on hold in order to take care of her.”
“Oh...”
He smirked, running his finger around the rim of his glass. “And I can tell you agree with her.”
Mallory raised her hands. “I never said I agreed with her!”
“I’m reading between the lines.”
Mallory groaned. “That’s not fair. Don’t read too much intoanythingI say. Not only do I have very little information on the subject, but I’m also a little tipsy, so just ignore me.”
James’ gaze lingered on her for a beat, his green eyes catching the light. “I don’t think I could ignore you even if I tried.”
Mallory parted her lips to speak, but no words came. For a moment, she remained still and speechless, her thoughts drowned out by her racing heartbeat. She scrambled to take another sip and mask her surprise. She didn’t know what made her more anxious, the fact that James was flirting with her or that it was working.
“Alright,” she said, composing herself, “tell me your side of things. If you’re not putting your life on hold, then prove it.”
“How would I do that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know… Tell me what you do for fun? Do you have a group of friends here in Ferndale? Are you… dating anyone?” Even though she already knew the answer to this last question, she wanted to hear him say it in his own words. After all, it was possible that what she’d heard through the town rumor mill wasn’t fully accurate.
James smiled. “Have you been talking to my grandmother behind my back?”
“No.”
“Because she’s been asking me the same thing for a few years,” he said. “The question about my dating life, not the other two. But now that you mention it, maybe if I had a good group of friends who I was hanging out with regularly, she wouldn’t be so worried about whether or not I had a girlfriend.”
“Probably,” Mallory agreed. “But I think it’s fair for her to want you to have people in your life—whether they’re friends or someone you’re dating.”
James shrugged. “Yeah, but she doesn’t understand how hard it can be to make friends in a small town like this. She’s always been a social person, it’s easy for her to connect with people, but that’s never been my strong suit.”
“I know what you mean. I haven’t had a ton of luck in the adult friend department. Or in the dating world.”
His eyes widened. “You mean… you’re not with someone?”
Mallory shook her head. “Nope. Not currently and not really in the past either. As pathetic as that may sound.”
“Hey, I have no room to judge…”
She arched her brow. “And yet, you look like you’re judging me.”
James waved his hands defensively. “No, not at all! I just really wasn’t expecting you to be single. I thought for sure you would’ve met some cool, artsy guy in some big city and that would be that.”
She snorted. “No. Unfortunately not.”
“It’s not unfortunate for me,” he said under his breath. A second later, he seemed to realize what he’d just said because his face flushed a deep red and he cleared his throat. “Sorry, that was the alcohol talking.”
Mallory laughed, but the sound came out giddy and high-pitched like a schoolgirl’s giggle. Her cheeks reddened and she wanted to jump out of the nearest window.
Oh my god, what’s wrong with me?
“Anyway,” James said loud enough to shatter the tension between them, “you’ve told me a bit about what youhaven’tbeen up to since graduating, but I want to know what you have been up to.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Really, I do!” he insisted. “I’m genuinely curious.”
“You’re only curious because you don’t know how boring the story is,” she said. “The good news is I can sum it up in a few sentences. I’ve been jumping from job to job, going from city to city, trying to find something that feels right. So far, I’ve come up short every single time. My adult life has been a series of missteps and dead ends.” She laughed bitterly. “Who knew things were only going to bedownhillafter my parents cheated to help me graduate?”
